Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp takes a photograph with 2 supporters during the 17th yearly Floyd County GOP Rally astatine the Coosa Valley Fairgrounds connected Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021 successful Rome, Georgia.(Troy Stolt/Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP)
Gov. Brian Kemp volition laic retired further steps to assistance Georgia hospitals and promote — but not necessitate — authorities employees to get vaccinated amid an alarming surge successful coronavirus cases.
Kemp has scheduled a quality league Monday with Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey to sermon these steps and reply questions, the governor’s bureau said implicit the weekend.
It comes arsenic Georgia’s lawsuit number continues to rise, fueled by the overmuch much contagious delta variant among radical who haven’t been vaccinated.
Hospitals are again inundated with coronavirus patients, and galore person warned they don’t person capable beds and staff.
The fig of COVID-19 patients successful hospitals climbed to astir 4,300 implicit the weekend, and much than 88% of the state’s ICU beds were successful use. The immense bulk of COVID patients are unvaccinated. Only 41% of Georgia’s colonisation is afloat vaccinated, good beneath the nationalist average.
The state’s seven-day rolling mean of caller cases climbed supra 6,000 connected Friday, the worst since Feb. 1.
Schools, meanwhile, are struggling to support classrooms unfastened arsenic exposures to COVID-19 infections unit galore students and teachers to quarantine. School districts successful Burke, Crisp, Long and Ware counties announced Friday that they would nonstop students home, bringing the fig of districts that person done truthful to nine.
Kemp, a Republican up for reelection adjacent year, has rejected a statewide disguise mandate and said the authorities volition not restrict businesses oregon nationalist activities again. He has encouraged radical to get vaccinated, but has opposed mandates, saying that immoderate radical whitethorn ne'er beryllium consenting to instrumentality the shots.
That’s a crisp interruption with states led by Democrats. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced earlier this month that astir of Virginia’s authorities workers volition person to beryllium vaccinated oregon hold to regular COVID-19 testing. North Carolina, New York and California person issued akin requirements, and the Biden medication has ordered strict vaccine rules for national workers.
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